A. The headquarters
of the Newport Group, the powerful real estate & development
company owned by tycoon Caleb Nichol.

Kirsten Cohen
(his daughter) had her offices there when she worked for her father. It
is a striking building, with a unique tilt.

(The idea of
the Newport Group was probably inspired by the real-life Irvine Company,
which owned and developed much of Orange County.)

Q.
Where is it supposed to be on the show?

A. Somewhere
in Newport Beach.

Q.
When did we see it on the show?

A. In Season
two, we see the building in three O.C. episodes: Episode 17,
"The Brothers Grim", Episode 19, "The Rager"
& Episode 22, "The Showdown".

Each time, we
are shown similar shots of the exterior of the actual building, before
cutting to interior office shots (most of which were actually filmed inside
a studio).

Q.
What is it actually in real life?

A. It really
an unique office building - but not in Orange County.

Q.
Where can I find it in real life?

A. It is the
administrative headquarters of the F.A.A. (Federal Aviation Administration)
Federal Credit Union, and it's located at 14600 Aviation Blvd,
tucked away between two Marriott hotels in what is known as Aviation
Center, in Hawthorne, CA (on their western border with Manhattan
Beach), just a block or two east of the Manhattan
Beach Studio where The O.C. is filmed, .

It is just south
of Rosecrans Avenue and just north of Marine Avenue, on the east
side of Aviation Blvd. To reach it, turn east onto a private street
named Aviation Center Drive. The building is at the east end of
that short street/parking lot.

The spectacular,
35,000 square foot building opened in 2000; it was designed by Nadel Architects
Inc (you can see photos of it on their website,
if you click "portfolio" then "public sector"). Made
of limestone and glass, its 15 degree tilt to the west salutes the notion
of flight - an appropriate touch for an Aviation office building...

(I shot
the photo below in 2006.)

Here is a map
link with the exact location. (Note that Google maps puts its green
arrow a bit west of the actual building.)

A. I didn't.
I'm embarrassed to say that I drove right past this one several times without
spotting it (while visiting the other O.C. locations in the area). The
building is set back from the street, and I just didn't notice it.

Fortunately,
a group
of O.C. fans from Italy managed to find it, and emailed me (in June
2006) to let me know where it was. So I drove by and checked it out,
shot a photo, and I'm passing on the info.

In particular,
the Newport Group building was located by Umberto Villero. He found
out via Google that the Newport Group building was the same building used
as the Miami Police headquarters in the TV show "CSI: Miami",
and his further online research uncovered the fact that the CSI building
was actually the FAA credit union in Hawthorne. From there, it was
just a matter of looking up the street address. Thanks, Umberto.